Improving Diabetes Care:Effectiveness of Physician Profiling and Care Coordination by a Diabetes Resource Nurse

Physician practices received periodic feedback on their performance on selected diabetes quality of care measures as reflected by the Medicare claims data for their patients.

Physician practices received period feedback on their performance on selected diabetes quality of care measures, as reflected by data collected from their patients' medical records. These data were compiled by trained nurse abstractors using a standardized data collection tool developed for this study.

Diabetes Resource Nurses (DRNs) were registered nurses with 3-5 years of experience as certified diabetes educations who performed initial patient assessments, developed plans of care, administered screening tools, and monitored clinical outcomes. Physicians at the practices randomised to this intervention had could access the DRN's services for their diabetes patients, but neither physicians nor patients had to take advantage of this resource.